Tuesday, August 26, 2008

How God Has Used the U.S. in Iraq


Over the next few days, I want to suggest to you how God has used the United States of America in Iraq. We pray every Sunday at Kings Point for our soldiers and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have always believed that God would use our presence in the Middle East to bring about His ends. Here is the first of several ways that God has and is working through the U.S. in the Middle East.

TO PROTECT ISRAEL

Few people are more qualified to talk about Iraq's past, present, and future than Iraqi General Georges Sada. Now in his sixties, Sada has served as the chief spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister and as a senior advisor to the Iraqi president, and he is one of the chief architects of the new Iraqi military. But he was once Iraqi's top fighter pilot, his country's air vice-marshal, and a top advisor to Saddam Hussein - a role he did not seek and one that almost cost him his life.

In November of 1990-only two months before the U.S. and coalition forces liberated Kuwait-Saddam ordered Sada and his colleagues to plan a massive attack against Israel using every plane in the Iraqi air force. If the U.S. dared to attack against Iraq, Saddam vowed, then he would order a retaliatory strike against Israel that would involve dropping chemical weapons on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other Israel population centers, killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of Israelis.

Sada was horrified as a devout evangelical Christian working for a ferociously anti-Christian regime. He had refused to join the Baath Party but was promoted anyway partly because of his flying ability and leadership skills, partly because of his reputation for telling his superiors the truth, and partly because Saddam did not see him as a direct threat to him. Sure enough, Saddam Hussein asked Sada for his counsel regarding the attack on Israel. Sada said a silent prayer asking God for mercy, braced himself for the worst, and refused to support the plan. In fact, in front of at least ninety other senior military officers, he actually sought to dissuade Saddam from attacking Israel by launching into a highly technical description of Israel's air-defense systems. His presentation lasted an hour and forty-one minutes, and when it was over, the room was dead silent. Not many men disagreed with Saddam Hussein and lived to tell about it. But by the grace of God, Sada survived. So, of course, did Israel.

On December 17, 1990, Saddam did, in fact, sign the order for the massive chemical-weapons attack against the Jewish state if the U.S. attacked first. But when the Gulf War began on the night of January 16, 1991, the American and coalition forces destroyed Iraq's air force so quickly that Saddam never had the chance to implement his order. Sada's memoir: Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein, shares this story along with many others about how God watched over and protected Israel through America's intervention in the middle east.

God is faithful to His Word which says He will bless those nations that bless His people, the Jews. Undoubtedly, our presence in the middle east has been a deterrent to nations who want to see Israel wiped off the map. May we as a nation continue to stand by Israel.

-Pastor Randy

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